SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Lion was pulled from the menu, but would anyone eat it?

Aug 16, 2012, 1:23 PM | Updated: Aug 19, 2012, 2:17 pm

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lion_ap
Who wants to take a bite out of tasty lion meat? (AP Photo/File)

It was on the menu, but the helping of lion was pulled before a Wichita restaurant’s one-night-only exotic meal night.

At $160 a plate guests were getting kangaroo, alpaca, crocodile, water buffalo, and – until it was pulled from the menu – lion.

Adam Roberts, with animal advocacy group Born Free USA has seen lion on the menu before, not just in Wichita but in Washington D.C. And it’s not because it’s tasty. He says it’s all about the restaurant’s publicity.

“At the very least [these restaurants] are going to get some public attention.”

According to Roberts, the Wichita restaurant, like others trying to put lion on the menu, claim that the lion is farm raised for our consumption.

Lion farms aren’t monitored by the USDA, so whether it comes form an “exotic farm” in the U.S. or from the African safari, it’s difficult to prove the dish’s exact origins.

Still, according to Roberts, the restaurant in Wichita got exactly what they were looking for without anyone taking a bite out of Simba:

Publicity.

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Lion was pulled from the menu, but would anyone eat it?